


red and green and blue

by nantes (titians)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titians/pseuds/nantes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Primary colors are sets of colors that can be combined to make a useful range of colors. For human applications, three primary colors are usually used, since human color vision is trichromatic. OR 'three founders try again and manage to get it right this time. . . despite a few bumps along the way'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red and green and blue

It all begins on Tuesday.

Rowena turns up at the door in a blue cocktail dress exactly sixteen minutes after she sent a text to Salazar saying that she would arrive in twenty. He opens the door, still dressed in his black boxer briefs, to which she rolls her eyes.

"The wedding isn't until two," he reminds her. Rowena flicks on the kettle and gets to mugs down from the press over the sink. "Don't worry, I'll shower."

The kettle has just reached boiling point when a blonde steps out from Salazar's bedroom with her shoes clutched to her chest. For a moment, she glares at the brunette placing a tea bag in each cup before Rowena asks, "Would you like some?"

She nods, stepping in next to the other woman and helping herself to another cup from the press. Salazar watches them both.

(He always goes for blondes when it isn't Rowena. A professional would probably tell him that his preference for a certain hair colour has something to do with an oedipal complex, but his mother has always had dark hair. Like Rowena.)

"We're going to a wedding together," he eventually explains, the three of the leaning against various surfaces across his kitchen. The blonde nods. "A friend of mine is getting married."

Rowena adds, once she placed her cup down on the counter, "We know each other from work."

 

*

 

On the steps of the church, they meet up with Godric.

How Salazar has managed to keep them apart for so long, Godric doesn't know. Salazar smiles as he introduces them both -- "Godric, this is Rowena. Rowena, this is my best friend, Godric," -- and Godric grins at the brunette.

The pair shake hands and easily, Rowena returns the smile. 

They sit together through the service, on the bride's side of course. However, twenty minutes into the reception, Salazar manages to find a blonde, slightly prettier than the one from last night, and abandons his date and his best friend to each other's company. When Rowena gets bored -- and runs out of wine -- she begins to draw circles on the table cloth with the rim of the glass. Big, burgundy circles with the dregs of the wine as she spins the thin neck between her fingers.

Godric asks, "How long have you know Salazar?"

She knows he has heard it from the other man already, but Rowena humours the brunette with, "About four years -- he was a teaching assistant when I was interning in the library. We used to hang out in the stacks when he finished for the day; I always had to stay late, sorting."

At this, he smiles, and Rowena feels her face return it. He asks, "Would you like to dance?" And she says yes, just to humour him.

As the song changes from one Nina Simone track to the next and Godric resituates his hand to the small of Rowena's back, he asks, "Would you like to go for dinner?" She laughs, purely because they've just eaten, and then agrees.

 

*

 

Even though she tells him, flat out, "I'm not really looking for anything serious," while they're waiting for the waiter to return with their starters, Rowena agrees to go on a second date with him.

It's more relaxed than the first.

As she bends over the pool table to take her shot, Godric asks, "If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh?" Despite his words, she manages to put the ball in the left pocket and as she straightens back up, she lifts her eyes from the table and meets his, nodding. "Ok," he says, more for his own benefit, while Rowena works out the best place to take her next shot from.

"I think I know you," he states.

Again, she makes the shot regardless of the minor distraction. And, true to her word, she doesn't laugh. The brunette takes a short sip from his beer. It's technically her shot again but Rowena lets Godric take a shot; there are only two red balls left on the table.

He continues, bending forward and aiming to pot the yellow in the middle right pocket, "Like I've met you in another life." He misses.

Rowena rolls her eyes. 

(She would have gone for the top left pocket.) 

"Maybe we did," she replies. Although she doesn't believe it. "Maybe we met in another life and, I don't know, we lost one another."

He smiles and the brunette sees it in his eyes that he isn't stupid; he knows she's placating him. "Maybe we did. And maybe this is us trying again."

She laughs, the sound quick and bright, and it makes three men at the bar look over at the two of them. Godric grins sheepishly while Rowena takes another sip of her beer. "That has to be one of the worst pick up lines I've ever heard," she informs him. "Imaginative, I suppose, but terrible all the same."

"What if I really believe it?"

Rowena goes, "Ok." 

 

*

 

She brings him back to her place.

After continuing to insist that his pick up line about knowing her in another life is terrible and that she would absolutely not allow herself to be pick up using said line, she brings Godric back to her place. It feels like enough of a triumph for her to smile as slides the key into the lock.

He tosses his jacket over the arm of the couch and follows her into the kitchen. Rowena waits for him to mention it, but the older man instead asks, "Where are the mugs?" while the kettle comes to a boil.

 

*

 

"You free later?"

Salazar's voice startles her and Rowena lets four large books fall from her arms. They land on the ground with a bang, the first, then the next and so on. She tuts loudly to herself before kneeling down to pick them up. He waits for her to stand back up before trying again.

"You and me, dinner at mine," he states. Then adds, just to clarify: "Tonight."

When Rowena hesitates, taking too long to think about it, Salazar huffs. It's only half playful. "I'll see you tonight," he informs her. "We can order in and you can tell me all about your date with Godric."

She corrects him as her friend goes to walk away. "Dates, plural."

"The university gossips aren't working as well as they should be."

Rowena wrinkles her noise with a small laugh. "Perhaps they think I'm a prude."

Salazar reveals all his teeth in the smile he gives her. Already at the corner of the bookshelves, about to step out into the main walkway through the library, he replies, "No, not you."

He can't see it when the brunette sticks out her tongue at him. It's a childish gesture and once she catches someone else's voice approaching, Rowena quickly puts the muscle back inside her mouth. She feels herself blue. Thankfully the voice and footsteps pass by her shelves and continue towards the back of the library.

It is her job to tell people to be quiet. She doesn't bother with it right now.

 

*

 

After the Xbox decides to die for the evening, Rowena heads home. Leaving Salazar sitting on the couch, fiddling with his phone. Oddly, he feels like he's been let down, that there's a large part of his evening that has been left unfulfilled. He dials Godric's number without thinking about it.

When Salazar opens the door just over half an hour later, Godric thrusts a twelve pack of beer into his chest and walks into the apartment, sliding his jacket off his shoulders. "Load up the Xbox," he orders, already in the living room while his best friend manoeuvres to shut the door with his shoulder and not drop all the bottles.

"It's not working," Salazar states. Godric nods.

"We can just drink," he replies.

They fall asleep on the couch together around three. Thankfully neither of them have class until the afternoon, but Salazar's inner clock wakes him at seven all the same.

Godric's arm is thrown lazily around his shoulders, the younger man's lips somewhat awkwardly pressed against his friend's throat. When Salazar licks his lips, he imagines that he can taste Godric on them. He gets off the couch fairly quickly after that.

The coffee machine takes exactly seven minutes to supply him with an adequate cup of coffee.

 

*

 

They walk through the campus together, Salazar's left hand wrapped around the leather strap of his satchel, crossing his chest, while Godric carries a stack of books under his arm.

"You never asked me how my date with Rowena went," Godric supplies and he ignores the way his best friend rolls his eyes, sighing heavily out of his open mouth.

There's a smile on the younger man's lips as he says, "There were two dates. And I asked Rowena herself."

Godric nods.

"Are you going to ask her out again?"

"Uh, yeah." He nods again, twice. "If that's ok."

Salazar doesn't know if his friend is addressing him or talking about Rowena herself. He shrugs and neither of them address the subject again, separating from one another at the green. As he gets closer to the science block, the area starts to get more crowded with students, one on a skateboard almost sending the professor flying backwards as his elbow collides with Salazar's stomach.

A laugh rings out jest behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he catches Rowena grinning behind him.

"Smooth," she sounds out, elongating the vowels. "At least if you had fallen I would have felt some sympathy for you."

He waits a few seconds, letting her catch up to him. They walk into the building together, Rowena typing in the door code while Salazar holds the door handle.

 

*

 

Two more dates and, suddenly, it's a month later.

Godric asks, "You're ok with us, right?"

Salazar frowns, with a highlighter in one hand and the cap in the other. He lifts his eyes from the pages in front of him and meets his friend's blue ones across the table. "Me?"

"No, I'm asking the book in front of you."

The younger man thins his eyes at his friend while forcing a fake laugh through his lips. "Yeah," he replies, once he's centred himself again. "Course I'm ok with it." Pause. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Godric laughs, the sound light and mocking enough to make Salazar scowling, but he's facing the pages in front of him once more, so his friend misses it. "Because of, you know. You guys used to hook up."

Salazar balks. "I- that was. It wasn't."

"I know."

Salazar's glad one of them does.

 

*

 

Rowena cancels going to Godric's and turns up on Salazar's doorstep at nine o'clock. She brings two bottles of red, both screw tops. Salazar wonders if Godric had the same conversation with her, but he doesn't mention it and instead, watches her lift her sweater over her head. The shirt underneath gets caught, slowly pulling up she stomach with the wool and revealing her skin.

"I'll get glasses," he tells her.

When he comes back, she's out of the sweater and lying back on the couch, one bottle already open in her hand and the tell-tale purplish stain on her lips. "Are you ok?" he asks, flopping down beside her in one movement, almost boneless and utterly relaxed with the way he bounces before settling.

She nods, slowly and only once. "Yeah, I'm good." She smiles and it's genuine.

Salazar moves in, removing the bottle from her hands without too much effort. He takes a large gulp, catching up with his friend's alcohol intake. The bottom of the bottle rattles off the table, glass on wood, as he puts it down.

He wants to say 'he asked about us' and 'I told him I was ok with it'. But Salazar gets distracted by the curve of Rowena's mouth, the way one strand of her hair has come free from the rest, neatly back behind her shoulder, and it lies across her throat. He brushes it away carefully before following the trail with his lips.

Rowena sighs.

He laughs against her skin and places another kiss, over three freckles and the jut of her collar bone.

"Don't," she whispers. Salazar lifts his lips from her throat, pausing to watch the way the muscles move around a swallow before she inhales heavily, and he meets her eyes.

"Why?" he asks. "I thought you weren't looking for anything serious."

Rowena smiles, all straight white teeth, before she bites at her bottom lip, tugging the flesh into her mouth. She laughs, lightly and briefly. "You're such a dick," she tells him. This time, she's the one to pull him to her, kissing him.

Salazar's nose knocks against hers, their teeth clicking off one another. He reaches up his left hand to cup her jaw, taking control of the kiss. 

 

*

 

She's gone in the morning.

Salazar doesn't take it too badly, instead wrapping the duvet up around his neck and rolling over for another few hours of sleep.

 

*

 

Godric turns up a few days later.

"She's not returning my calls."

Salazar lets him straight through without another word. He at least has the shame to look away from his friend, staring down at his bare feet on the wooden floor as the older man paces back and forth, some long winded speech about everything going well and how he is at a completely loss about what to do because Rowena Ravenclaw is not the type of person you just go up to and demand answers from. "Plus, she works in the library and I am not getting kicked out of the library because I decided to air my personal business in the middle of it," he finishes.

Salazar nods. It's all he can think of to do.

"Have you heard from her?"

Unsurprisingly, it all descends into a row.

"She's not looking for anything serious," the younger man retorts. Godric looks ready to punch him, his hands balled into fists at his side. "You knew that from the beginning."

He practically growls as he says, "So, you just decide to fuck her."

Salazar rolls his eyes, arms folded across his chest. He knows he's acting like a petulant child, but when it comes to his best friend and fighting with him, he constantly feels like the wounded thirteen-year-old.

"She also fucked me, you know. It does require two people."

"And I'll take that up with her when I see her next." Godric pauses, wets his lips with his tongue. And then seems to deflate. "You're supposed to be my best friend."

 

*

 

"I'm sorry that I hurt you."

She actually meets his eyes to say and Godric can't help but smile. Rowena's lips move to do the same, but all she manages is a small smile. Small but genuine.

"I do like you, I do. But there's-"

Godric nods. She drops his gaze.

"Yeah, there's-"

 

*

 

Rowena appears in his office. For a moment, Salazar considers leaving -- he's close enough to the door to make a clean break for it, but he sort of wants to hear what she has to say.

"Did you do it to get his attention or because I picked him over you?"

Salazar swallows something in his throat. It's not that he ever forgets how smart Rowena actually is, but sometimes it sidelines him, makes him take a step because yeah, Rowena didn't just look that up in a book and come to him with it -- although she can easily do that, considering where she works -- but she knew that, probably longer than she would admit and now she's using that bit of knowledge to make other people feel stupid.

He shrugs. Because that's all he can do. 

"If I say both, will you slap me?"

Rowena smiles. That takes him more by surprise than anything else. She shakes her head, then quickly returns the piece of hair that fell away in the movement behind her ear. "I was never going to slap you." She breathes in. "Godric might punch you or something, but I was never going to."

Salazar nods. "I should go and talk to him."

"That would be the best idea, yes."

 

*

 

"I don't wanna be alone." He says as plainly as he can. Godric still stands there silently in front of him, arms folded across his chest. But at least he hasn't punched Salazar yet. The younger man takes a moment to steady himself. "You two," he begins, "you two are the only constants I have in my life."

Godric cuts across. "I asked you if you were ok with it."

"And I am," he fights back. "I was when you asked and I still am. I like you two together. It makes sense. Or something."

At times like these, Salazar wishes Rowena could speak for him. Instead, she sits at the kitchen table, neither watching them nor giving the Sunday Telegraph Magazine her full attention. He stares at the side of her face, over Godric's shoulder, and counts off the seconds until she looks at him. It takes thirteen. And she smiles.

He returns it because he wants to.

Godric coughs in between them.

"I just don't want you to do it without me."

In front of him, his friend's face changes. His jaw loosens and for a split second, the hintings of a smile creep around the corners of his mouth. He leans in, slowly and Salazar allows himself to get crowded up against the fridge. A magnet falls to the floor. For some reason, Salazar smirks and smirks and smirks up at his friend. Godric sucks in a breath, slight shake and with a light note on it, nodding although the younger man hasn't said anything.

"Yeah," he replies in kind.

From the other side of the room, Rowena flips the page of her magazine; Salazar can't tell if she's watching them or has found an article she's actually interested in.

Godric's breath is warm. That's the first thing he notices. After that, he can't tell if he pulls himself forward or if his friend pushes in the last few centimetres, but they're kissing. Up against the fridge, Salazar licks along the older man's bottom lip, pushes his way into his mouth and, for some reason, he is all at once fourteen again and denying his feelings for his best friend.

The other man, he doesn't seem nearly as affected by it, instead counting along Salazar's teeth with the tip of his tongue, until he reaches up and curls Salazar's collar into his fist, holding him in place.

 

*

 

After that, it's easy.

Rowena folds the broadsheet in half to make it easier to hold. The business section bends a little in the middle, but she's on the bottom half of the page, so it doesn't bother her. Across the table, Godric sips his coffee and reads about the latest innovations in cars, a bright yellow car staring up from the page above a large block of text, divided into three columns.

Salazar just stands there. Or, rather, leans. He leans back against the counter, holding his bowl of cereal to his chest. And he stares back and forth between the other two, who continue to ignore him.

Rowena isn't wearing any trousers, perfectly comfortable in her bare legs and shirt that just about covers the curve of her ass, of her blue cotton panties. Godric is equally undressed, Salazar remembering how his boxers sat low on his hips as he went about making toast and boiling the kettle.

At the table, Rowena sighs. Never taking her eyes off the newspaper, she says, "Salazar, will you please sit down while you're eating; at least pretend you have some sort of manners when it comes to breakfast." There's the hint of a laugh in her voice, but it's Godric who meets the younger man's eyes as he walks towards the chair between them, his bare feet padding soundlessly over the tiled floor.

He settles down into it but never puts his bowl on the table. Underneath it, Rowena moves her legs so Salazar has enough room for his.


End file.
